City hall has deceived you for quite sometime about the Olympics.

For years now the city has been reviewing an Olympic bid and the public was constantly told it was an objective exercise, one that would help determine if a bid made sense or not.

But there’s no way that’s true. Just as no one wins the lottery a dozen times, the following examples of city hall stacking the deck in favour of making an Olympic bid couldn’t possibly be a series of coincidences. Bidding for the Olympics has been the goal from the get go.

Let’s start with the committee chosen to investigate an Olympic bid. The committee included three former Olympians, a former Olympic torchbearer, a representative from Canada’s Olympic Committee and someone who helps an organization that raises funds for Olympic athletes. Some other members on the committee had clear biases as well.

Make no mistake, the volunteer time put in by the aforementioned individuals is appreciated and we mean no disrespect to them personally. However, if city hall wanted the exercise to be balanced, why were there no clear-cut dissenting voices appointed to the committee? For example, the city could have appointed someone from a think tank or an academic who understands that “economic benefit” claims often put forward by Olympic proponents are often exaggerated.

It’s likely such voices were not included because someone at the city had a desired outcome in mind.

Next, consider the fact that the city commissioned two reports to evaluate the economics of hosting an Olympic bid and two reports to critique those reports. Prior to a November 2017 council meeting to vote on potentially moving forward with an Olympic bid, the two reports that were critical of an Olympic bid mysteriously weren’t part of the package of materials given to city councillors.

Thankfully, the media brought the reports to light – and the public learned that one economist concluded that hosting the Olympics could actually hurt our nation’s economy.

More recently, city council discussed how they would determine what the public thought about an Olympic bid. Council reviewed a document that outlined a “neutral” engagement strategy with the public to solicit their view.

Yet, when one looks at the draft engagement report, low and behold, one of its objectives is to “build public support” for an Olympic bid. On page 11 of the report it also discusses creating a list of “community-specific benefits” that come from hosting the Olympics. Not surprisingly, the same page doesn’t discuss building a list of negative impacts associated with holding the Olympics.

For example, property tax increases to pay for the Olympics could lead to more business closures and job losses.

Most recently, council created a new committee of councillors to manage the Olympic process going forward. Who is on the committee? Council selected four councillors who have consistently voted in favour of an Olympic bid and just one who has opposed a bid. Thankfully, after some public criticism, council relented and added two more members to the committee – both opposed to making a bid.

Clearly, there are forces down at city hall that are determined to ram through an Olympic bid. The least proponents on council could do is acknowledge this fact and stop telling taxpayers otherwise.

Colin Craig is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation